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Nancy Brinker

She promised her dying sister, Susan Komen, that she would end breast cancer, and in 1982 founded the organisation that created the Race for the Cure and made breast cancer a mainstream cause.

Nancy Brinker's sister Susan Goodman Komen died of breast cancer in 1980 at 36. Brinker founded the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in Dallas in 1982 with $200 and a shoebox of names, held the first Race for the Cure in 1983, and built it into the world's largest breast cancer organisation, funding research, screening and patient support and making the pink ribbon a global symbol from 1991. She was later diagnosed with breast cancer herself. She served as US Ambassador to Hungary, as Chief of Protocol, and as a World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Komen's model of survivor-led fundraising and mass participation events has been copied across cancer types and countries.

Role
Founder of Susan G. Komen
Specialisms
Breast cancer advocacyCancer fundraisingGlobal cancer policy

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